AIBU to consider Fostering?

[1CantPickAName]

I am single and live with my 2 daughters, 13 & 7. I have been considering fostering for some time, but, for various reasons I don't think that is realistic. I believe that we have such a loving and supportive home that we could offer a stable and loving home to a child through adoption?

Financially I am okay. I am self employed and earn enough to support us and their various extracurricular activities, I am sure that I could afford another child.

am I being ridiculous?

It’s not about financially affording another child, could you emotionally do it? This won’t be like having another one of your children, these kids have been through awful things to end up needing foster care. Taking them to scouts and piano lessons isn’t enough to show what a wonderful home you have to give.

I would be realistic about the range of kids you'd encounter with fostering. Some children will have suffered severe neglect or abuse (including sexual abuse) and their behaviour will reflect this. You may have children who lash out physically or talk about sexual abuse they've suffered. I think it's a wonderful thing to do and is something I'm considering but at least for our family I don't think I'd be able to do it while my DC are young.

Adoption and fostering are different things - which do you mean?

Do you want to adopt (legally become a parent of a child) or foster (care for children on behalf of the local authority and be paid an allowance)?

There is an Adoption board, and also a Fostering board.
You may like to post on those.
Any adopted/fostered child would need their own bedroom.

I applaud your intentions but think very carefully. Fostering babies is one thing, although a huge wrench when they go. Fostering or adopting older children is very tough.
My adopted dds have complex issues. They can be aggressive, destructive, and have mental health problems. The youngest is 15 now and I haven’t been able to work for some years due to the constant appointments and exclusions from school. And mine is not an isolated case as I know lots of adopters and foster carers with similar issues.
Most local authorities say foster children should be several years younger than the youngest child in a household, and are particularly looking for foster carers able to take on sibling groups.
There’s no harm in looking into it further eg going to an information session but take it with a pinch of salt when they tell you all about the support they offer and see if you can talk to some foster carers or adopters.

You are not unreasonable but find out more and then make a decision. Asking on the fostering and adopting boards is a good idea. I have a family member who is a foster carer and I'd say two thing. 1) You get more support as a foster parent than an adoptive parent and 2) it is a million times harder than caring for your own child. My relative has fostered everything from babies (lovely but heart breaking to give up to their adoptive parents) to very damaged children who have complex needs due to physical and sexual abuse, neglect, alcohol/drug abuse and genetic issues. There are some lovely children who are scarily self assured and grown up because they've had to be.

Fostering is not like normal parenting, it requires depths of patience that frankly I do not have. But if you and your children are the right kind of family to foster it is an incredibly rewarding and worthwhile thing to do. Find out more but if you think you can't do it don't feel guilty, it's a very hard thing to do for all the family.

I haven't had experience of fostering, but I'm an adoptive mum to 2 DDs of 10 and 7. I love them both to bits, but DD1 is very challenging due to her SEN (she has hearing problems and wears hearing aids and glasses too) and she's also undergoing therapy for her attachment issues. We're also pushing for her to have a formal assessment, as we strongly suspect she's on the Autistic Spectrum. She has violent meltdowns and lashes out at me, and throws whatever is to hand.

I'm sharing all this, because you need to think carefully about what you will be taking on if you adopt. Even if you adopt a baby as a foster to adopt placement, you just don't know what needs your child will have.

Fostering is more of a job, for which you'll be paid by the LA. But you would likely to foster some very damaged children, who have been taken into care. Fostering babies until they're placed with adoptive parents or returned to their birth families is also a possibility; this can be rewarding, but a wrench when you have to say goodbye (this can be the case with older children too, of course). Both our DDs had foster carers before they were placed with us; I could see what a wrench it was for the foster mum, who was very attached to her.

My DDs' foster carers were ace. I will be forever grateful to them for the stability and nurturing they brought to their lives which enabled my DDs to be ready to move to adoption.